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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29211330">sanctuary</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/mathonwys/pseuds/autisticlalna'>autisticlalna (mathonwys)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Study, Gen, Karl Jacobs is Not Okay, Memory Loss, Not RPF, Time Travelling Karl Jacobs, the Inbetween (Tales From the SMP)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 06:21:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,066</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29211330</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/mathonwys/pseuds/autisticlalna</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s something familiar to the white corridors he walked through, something reassuring about the emptiness— he’s been here before, and he’ll keep coming here, until some day he doesn’t.<br/>-<br/>Karl Jacobs takes a moment to breathe.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>sanctuary</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
  <span>There was no sound except for his own footsteps, no colour besides himself (and even that was washed out), no breeze or warmth or cold. There was no chatter among his friends, no background noise of running water or blocks being placed or mobs groaning. There was nothing here but the white, himself, and the books.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
  <span>Karl Jacobs had been here before. The books told him so, and as strange as all of this is he’s found that he believes it. There’s something familiar to the white corridors he walked through, something reassuring about the emptiness— he’s been here before, and he’ll keep coming here, until some day he doesn’t.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
  <span>He curled one drawstring of his bleached-white hoodie around his finger, wrapping it tight, then untangled it in a repetitive motion. He wasn’t quite sure how long he’d been here, this time around, and wasn’t sure if time passed here to begin with. The sun stayed high overhead with no sign of movement. Karl kept a clock on him since the first time he traveled, but here in the Inbetween the illustration on it that showed the passage from day to night had gone blank white. Like everything else in this place.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
  <span>If he kept exploring here, he’d find out more about himself and why he travels. The book that’d told him that was in his unoccupied hand; he couldn’t bring himself to put it back, not yet. Not when he still needed to study it, to study this place, to study himself. The cover was simple asides from the soft enchantment-purple binding; the faintest outline of an angular swirl was embossed on the front cover, but besides that there was no indication of who’d written it. It’s not like he could check the handwriting— whoever’d written it had typed it out, in careful lettering, rather than how he wrote his own books back in the library by hand.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
  <span>His library. He needed to move it— he needed to keep it safe. The books, the posters, the diaries— he couldn’t let anyone else see them. He needed to preserve everything, because he knew what would happen if he didn’t. The memory of Mizu, a city scrounging for misinterpreted scraps of information on himself and his friends, was something he wouldn’t be able to forget no matter what traveling did to his memory. There was more to it than that, though, that he couldn’t place beyond a sensation that if he didn’t do this— if he didn’t travel, if he didn’t write— something terrible would happen.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
  <span>Karl carded a hand through his hair and exhaled. So much was weighing on him now, and he couldn’t even tell anyone. He thought back to Sapnap and Quackity, back home on the SMP— what would happen if he forgot them? What if it was more than just his own memories— what if they forgot </span>
  <em>
    <span>him</span>
  </em>
  <span>? What if he got lost in time, or lost here in the Inbetween, and he faded away?</span>
</p>
<p>
  
  <span>“Don’t forget who you are,” he mumbled. Even his quietest whisper was amplified by the halls into an echoing chorus— </span>
  <em>
    <span>Don’t forget who you are</span>
  </em>
  <span>, his own voice responded to him. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Don’t forget. Don’t forget. Don’t</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  
  <span>Karl took a step forward, and then there was a sense of vertigo as the ground rushed up to meet him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
  <span>Karl grunted in pain as his face slammed into the rough stone floor of his portal room. Behind him, the soft green-purple light of the portal— always an exit, never an entrance, or at least he never remembered entering it— flickered like a heart’s pulse. He gave it a glance over his shoulder as he pushed himself up off the ground, then shook his head and headed to the ladder leading him to the library.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
  <span>...What’d he been doing, again?</span>
</p>
<p>
  
  <span>He rubbed at his nose from where he’d hurt it— he must’ve tripped. He was getting more and more disoriented each time he returned from traveling, so it made sense he’d stumble. Didn’t stop the pain from being there. Didn’t stop him from feeling like the colours of his hoodie were too bright (which was weird, because that was why he wore it in the first place). Didn’t stop him from feeling like he’d forgotten something again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
  <span>Didn’t… stop him from feeling like he was supposed to be holding something? Karl rubbed at his eye with one fist and looked down at his empty hand that was gripping thin air. There’d been something… A book? Right, he needed to write a book. He’d find a way to move the library soon, some way to do it without drawing attention to himself— but that could wait.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
  <span>The summary book was harder to write than usual, this time. The tales he witnessed didn’t have happy endings, with the exception of one, but it was taking a toll on him as he tried to find a way to write down what he’d seen without falling into despair and disarray. It was harder to just be an observer, not now that he was entrenched in the story himself. It was harder to take the step back he needed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
  <span>The diary entry wasn’t any easier. He wasn’t used to writing about himself yet… or, he thought that was the case. Had he written about himself before? He couldn’t remember. He included that in his diary— </span>
  <em>
    <span>Even as i forget things around me, i forget things about myself too</span>
  </em>
  <span>— and paused to wipe at his face with his puffy sleeve.</span>
</p>

<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    
    <em>
      <span>The Inbetween… is it messing with my memories or is it really trying to help? Why does it feel familiar?</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>...I’m sure there’s a way to line the pieces up.</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      
    </em>
    <em>
      <span>There has to be.</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      
    </em>
    <em>
      <span>…</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      
    </em>
    <em>
      <span>No matter what, I can’t stop. Even if i want to, i can’t. I’ll keep traveling.</span>
    </em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p>
  
  <span>He turned the page. Hesitated. Clicked his pen as he thought of what else to say to his future self.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
  <em>
    <span>Don’t forget who you are,</span>
  </em>
  <span> he wrote. No matter what, he couldn’t forget.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
  <span>The sun was bright as he exited the hidden library. Karl’s clock said it was just past midday. He put a smile on his face as the wind brushed his hair, took a moment to listen to the distant arguing and the animal sounds and take in the general atmosphere of the Dream SMP, and told himself it was all going to be okay.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hello everyone i dont know what im doing but i have decided to add mr karl jacobs to the pile of minecraft men i care about. also the masquerade took my friggin knees</p></blockquote></div></div>
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